UnREAL Creator on Casting a Black Suitor: "I Knew We Were Going to Step in Sh*t"

UnREAL, the sleeper hit of last summer returns tonight for its second season, which promises more behind-the-scenes reality TV drama, whip-smart and hilarious dialogue, and profoundly fucked-up characters, along with plenty of brand-new drama — including the casting of an black lead on Everlasting, UnREAL's Bachelor-like show-within-a-show. Cosmopolitan.com talked with UnREAL's co-creator and executive producer Sarah Gertrude Shapiro (who spent three years as an associate producer of The Bachelor) about casting this season's suitor, grappling with racial issues in the writers' room, and whether Rachel's crazy.

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Rachel and Quinn get matching "money dick power" tattoos on their wrists in the first episode. How did you guys come up with that text in the writers' room?That was something that I actually came into the room with this season. In between seasons, I had taken some time to figure out what I wanted to do with season two, and then when the writers came into the writers' room at the start of the season, there was a giant white board that just said "money dick power" on it, and that was it.

Was Darius, this season's suitor, modeled on anyone in particular? His "bitch, please" moment with a reporter reminded me a lot of the Richard Sherman controversy.He's not specifically based on [Sherman], no. We actually looked at a couple of different incidents like the Richard Sherman incident, but what we were interested in is how black men are considered so threatening. Even a small incident with a white, female reporter will get blown up as though they've done something really wrong. We looked at Richard Sherman, but we looked at a couple of other people too.

Sarah Gertrude Shapiro.

Kathryn Wirsing

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At what point in breaking the season did you decide the suitor was going to be a black man?It was one of the first things that I decided I wanted to do when I was getting ready to come into the [writers'] room. Between seasons, there had been some talk of doing a bachelorette — or a female suitor, I guess, is what we call it— but I felt like that wasn't as interesting or pressing to me as doing a black suitor. And also, when I started thinking about stories for Rachel and Quinn this season, the black suitor plays into that really, really well. But when I came into the room, I talked to the room about it, and said that this was what I really wanted to do, but that I felt nervous about it, because we're not a very PC show. I knew we were going to step in shit a little and that it would get really uncomfortable at times. I wanted to talk about whether we could pull that off, and I especially listened to the writers of color in our room. I think what we landed on, which I felt pretty good about, was that it was going to be really complicated, but it was better to do it than to not do it. It was better to just go ahead and do it than be too scared to try.

I knew we were going to step in shit a little, and that it would get really uncomfortable at times.

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In that same vein, how do you do a show that's about racism and stereotyping and awful stuff that goes on behind the scenes on a show like Everlasting without letting the show sort of promote those views?I think that's something we sort of figured out season one, so luckily we had that to rely on. When we have Quinn say these terrible things, what's really important to me and what I advocate for is having her go balls to the wall. If you go halfway, you can't tell what our point of view is as we're writing the show. We sort of have to let her be one of those people like Alec Baldwin on 30 Rock — like, the people writing this person know that he's crazy and extreme. We want to make really clear when people are saying these horrible things that, yeah, we know they're horrible. We in the writers' room went through a lot of uncomfortable conversations that will hopefully allow those uncomfortable conversations to be had in a productive way outside of the writers' room too.

Do you have a diverse writing staff?There are six staff writers, and two of the women are black. We gave the [writers of color] room to talk before we started breaking the story. [We did] a lot of listening. And then we gave those writers, and also the cast members of color, veto power on any story lines that didn't feel right. The best we could do was to open it up and make sure we were really listening to everyone at every turn.

Quinn and Rachel's mentor/mentee relationship is already deteriorating by the end of the first episode — is that something we're going to continue to see explored throughout the season?This whole season is basically about Quinn and Rachel's horrible relationship. But it's also a fight for power. It's a fight for the throne, for who runs the show. Something I was really interested in talking about, because it's something I see in my life and find fascinating is that mentorship, if it goes well, means you outgrow your mentor. That's what's supposed to happen, but there's never really a plan for that. No one really knows how to say, "OK, you've outgrown me," so in my experience, it's always a little awkward.

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Something I was really interested in talking about, because it's something I see in my life and find fascinating is that mentorship, if it goes well, means you outgrow your mentor.

It also seems like we're going to get more into the particulars of Rachel's mental illness this season.Yes. We sort of want to answer the question of whether Rachel's crazy … And if she is crazy, what makes her crazy? I think it's pretty obvious that's she's not, like, hearing voices; she doesn't think her phone is tapped by the mafia. She's not super frantic. So it becomes a question of, what is it that's driven this person to these extremes?

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And it is extreme. Whatever else is going on, it's something you can always see on the surface — like when Quinn implies she's been talking to Rachel's mom and Rachel just immediately starts crying.For people that have struggled with mental illness stuff, I know there can be a big feeling of, "You're either on my side or you're not." And for Rachel, anyone who talks to her mom is her enemy, because her mom thinks she's crazy. Quinn implying that she's maybe on the enemy's side is really scary for Rachel.

Doubly scary because Rachel has nowhere else to go. You've just hit on one of those things I say all the time in the writers' room to calibrate us. Everyone's like, "Why does Rachel stay? Why is she still in this job?" and I'm like, "Where else is she going to go?" Like, she's going to go be a novelist? Can you imagine this person being a novelist? She's such a crazy combination of things, and the only place she fits is in this weird family.

UnREAL gets a ton of attention on social media. Is that something that you pay much attention to?I don't pay a lot of attention to it, only because I think as a writer, it's not great to respond to the internet, in general. Something I've seen on shows in seasons two or three is that they start playing to the cheap seats. Everyone loves one thing on Twitter, and all of the sudden, you're trying to do that thing three times in a season, because everyone loves it. I definitely see social media stuff a little bit, but I try to not pay attention to it.

How much do you keep up with — apologies for using the term — Bachelor Nation?Not at all! I can't watch it. It's like working at a hot dog factory and trying to eat hot dogs. But a couple of people in my writers' room definitely do. It is important for us to kind of know what's going on so we're not accidentally repeating something. But I just try to ignore it.

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